7:48 PM,
Mar. 10, 2013

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters alone makes the decisions about how hundreds of thousands in seized money are handed out.

Written by

Bad blood between Hamilton County's top law enforcement official and the head of the Cincinnati NAACP cost the civil rights organization tens of thousands of dollars in money seized from drug dealers.

After Christopher Smitherman, head of the NAACP's Cincinnati chapter, criticized - wrongly, he later admitted - Prosecutor Joe Deters' prosecution patterns, Deters got mad. The Hamilton County prosecutor decided he would no longer donate to the NAACP any of the money his office receives through seizures from drug dealers, gamblers and other criminals.